Considerations of
Dipl.Math. Ulrich Meyer , Feb. 2001
Basis for these
considerations is the book
'Wir sind nicht nur von dieser Welt' (= 'We are not
only from this world')
(Title of the english translation by Peter Heinegg : 'The
origins of life' )
by
Prof.Hoimar v. Ditfurth.
Contents :
1. The
consciousness of humans
2. The
inexplicable
3. The
extension of the mental horizon
4. Where now
is God?
5. Praying
6. Result
7.
To the continuation: Who is God? Part 2
8.
To the continuation: Who is God? Part 3 - The answer.
9.
To the continuation: Who is God? Part 4 - The consequences of a
creator's non-existance!.
10. Notes
(added in Oktober 2001)
1. The consciousness of humans
In the course of the evolution from first
primitive ways of
life today's humans have developed with its intelligence. Newly born
humans must begin to comprehend its surroundings in the first months of
his life.
In the real sense of the word 'comprehend',
because by the touching of its surroundings its senses learn. They
learn warmly and coldly, round and angularly or softly and
hard. With its five senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and
tasting, he learns impressions, which are coordinated with the
touchings and then are stored in the brain. Thus results an image of
the surroundings
which is stamped by the senses in the brain.
In the course of the development of humans he is confronted
again and again with new impressions, which are not to be explained
for him. If these impressions are not to be brought with the old
picture in his brain in connection, he researches. The child asks
his parents or other persons. The conception of the world of humans
is extended in such a way. Later in the school the experiences of
older humans are transferred directly to the younger ones. Thus humans
receive an experience thrust. Thus everyone does not need to gain
these experiences individually, as far as he would be able at
all in addition. Humans experience so more and more over itself and the
world,
in which he lives. Individual persons will then become researchers and
scientists, in order to find still further explanations for the things
in the world.
2. The inexplicable
We put ourselves now into the position of
our human
ancestors, who discovered the fire and which invented wheel. They
experienced things in the surroundings, which they could not explain.
Things, which made them afraid, e.g. flash and thunder. For the
explanation of these inexplicable phenomena something had to be found.
Thus they invented the Gods. Everything which was not explainable, was
made by the Gods.
We are with our considerations in the human family tree after
the transition of the animal to humans. By animals according to my
opinion no sign of God faith and religious thinking is to be found.
Which
means the word 'faith', can be available only with a certain
intelligence. The Gods solvs the problem of the
unexplainable for our ancestors. This polytheism had different
facets, e.g. the 'falling in love' was explained with an
arrow of the God Amor.
With the time humans developed systems of government, e.g.
kingdoms. With the Egyptians in 14. Century before Christ
king Echnaton (Amenophis IV.) and later his son Tut-Ench-Amun achieved
a God-similar status. By this quasi removing from the normal
population and approximating to the Gods, these kings had however many
opponents. They tried to change therefore the polytheism at that
time (much Gods) into a monotheism (one God). They failed
however. After the death of Tut-Ench-Amun the old Gods were again
adored. With the Christianity again a monotheistic religion was
created. Then the monotheism was taken over later also by the
Islam.
While the gods of the polytheism were found in many areas of
nature (e.g. forest and water God), in the monotheism the
God is set into the sky. The sky was in former times unattainable
for humans. How it looked there, one did not know and it was open
thereby for all imaginations.
3. The extension of the
mental horizon
Humans developed themselves further. The
telescope was
invented. With it one could see further into the sky. If people
regarded
in former times the earth as a disk and center (geocentric) of the
universe, they detected the spherical shape of the earth in the late
Middle Ages as truely. Galileo Galilei (1564 -1642) founded
modern physics and discovered that the earth turned around the sun
(heliocentrical worldview). Thus he came in conflict however with the
institution which has developt from the religion, the church. The sky
was reserved only for God and humans have nothing to do there.
But the scientific knowledge could not be stopped and
developed themselves further. People saw about our solar system and
explored into the depths of the universe. While our macroscopic
horizon of the earth extended about our solar system in the universe,
the microscopic horizon were extended first with optical, later with
electronic microscope and up to atoms and elementary particles in the
other direction.
With the extension of the mental horizon one managed usually
with the five senses, to detect and solve the discovered problems. The
study of the universe led then to phenomena, which were
not to be explaind with the previous knowledge. Only Albert Einstein
supplied a solution with his
relativity theory
. The ingenious at Einstein's considerations was that he
found
explanations for phenomena, which contradict completly the imaginations
at that time.
The discovery of the chemical ring-structure of the benzene
molecule by Kékulé e.g. was also large performance and
this led
chemistry into a new dimension. But a ring was not new and
this discovery can be understood with our senses well.
Einstein's
relativity theory
goes far out
of the understanding of our senses. It concerns itself among other
things with speed of light and curvature of the space, with which we
have never to do in our everyday life on the earth.
4. Where now is God ?
The scientific understanding for the universe
developed
thanks Einstein very far. We must extend our knowledge however
out of our senses by scientific logical explanations. Therefore we
should stop
the picture of God that he is an old man with beard in the
sky. We should leave the personification of God. This
contradicts the Bible in which God created the humans after his image.
But
in the Bible are still more contradictions to the today's scientific
level of knowledge.
With the size of the universe we assumes outside of the
earth still further life and ways of life exists. Because the
appearance
of humans comes from the conditions on earth, like terrestrial gravity,
atmosphere and chemical elements, it is to be assumed that
further life in the universe also has another appearance. It is
therefore a very egoistically meaning that even humans would be an
image
of God. With this universe God must be also much more complicated.
He is far out of our human understanding. Therefore a complete
explanation
of God will be impossible for us. Our question "Who is
God ?" finally will be never answered, as a complete explanation
of the universe by the scientific progress also can never be reached.
But we can approximate a solution.
We should ask ourselves therefore first "Where is
God ?".
Also that couldn't be answered completely. We can regard
however its effects. Since God is omnipresent, he should be present
'everywhere'.
What
exists 'everywhere' ? -
stuff (this is masses).
And masses is equal energy by
Einstein's relativity theory
and is everywhere in the universe distributed (Note [1]). If we come, nevertheless,
back to the picture of God as an old man, we
could regard the energy accordingly as a hand or a arm of him.
Energy is responsible for all processes. Copying of the genetic code
during a cell division is not possible without energy. Energy
radiation is also one of the main causes that during this copying
occasionally errors occurred, which led in the course of the time for
the various genetic selection and thus to the evolution. In attempts
it could be also shown that in the 'origin-soup', an aqueous solution
with molecules from carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, by energy rays e.g.
flashes amino acids can appear. The 'origin-soup' was at
the beginning of the earth a main part of the surface. These amino
acids are the basic modules of the genetic code, thus the basis of the
life, as we know it. After these considerations God is to be found
everywhere in nature and in the whole universe. It is responsible for
all processes, which we describe with the laws of nature. This
thinking way is not new, because there is already for long time the
Greek term 'pantheism' .
It is, as said, no complete explanation for God, but today with
the present knowledge status this description for God appears better to
me
as the old man in the sky.
5. Praying
We should now look to the correspondence between
God and
humans, the praying. This is not a dialogue but a
monologue, thus an extremely one-sided process.
How one introduces himself, each humans can pray at any time of
any place to God. God has so a substantially better
monitoring, than it is executed by the 'Stasi' in the GDR.
Nevertheless, it would be
once necessary for checking whether thereby God does not
offend against national laws.
You forgive me the last sarcastic words. They reflect
only the contradiction, which someone have, who was infused with
these old conventional religious conceptions in his youth and
who learns to know this technical and scientific
boom of the last years in the course of his life. These are virtually
two worlds,
which do not fit together.
By the size of the universe I cannot imagine an individual
care when praying to God for all livings. We must regard mankind as a
collective, which is responsible for its future also as a collective.
Thus these questions would be omitted to the church, why some 'good'
humans have a bad fate, while some 'bad' humans, e.g. some
dictators, have a life in abundance. These
contradictions were never clearly answered by the religion (Note [2]).
We come again back to praying. This is by my opinion a
type of self-psychology. If a person believes himself more surely and
strengthened after a prayer, then this comes from a risen
self-confidence.
Self-confident persons are psychologally more stable than frightened
persons. In India and other asiatic religions there is
the 'medititation' instead of 'praying'. This is a much better
process for the stabilization of the psyche.
Many religious people will not be able to
agree to these last views. They should remain by their opinion, because
if one
does not believe firmly in it, a prayer also cannot help.
My remarks do not have a requirement on
absolute correctness.
They can also be false. They should be regarded more than a suggestion
for discussion. Already
Prof.Hoimar
v. Ditfurth showed in his books that the church always
limped afterwards in its thinking of the science. New scientific
knowledge were first
always rejected and later it was taken over as correct probably
against-willingly.
The church should consider itself, if its traditional thinking,
which is based on a 2000 years old book, is still corresponding to
today's status. That do not mean that all old is false. But many
opinions are not
longer up-to-date. With today's technical development in
particular also the biotechnological development, which pushes now to
a boundary, that particularly was reserved only for God, one should
think about
a re-orientation in the religious thinking. But one should assume
however we
will never find a complete explanation for God and the universe.
7. Here you come to the
continuation - the Part 2
of 'Who is God?'
8. Here you come to the
continuation - the Part 3
of 'Who is god?' with the answer!
9. Here you come to the
continuation - the Part 4
of 'Who is god?' with the consequences of a creator's non-existance!
10. Notes
:
[1] : Stephen Hawking
, professor for physics and mathematics of the university of Cambridge,
has a
similar opinion. By the presentation of his book "The universe in a
nutshell" in Munich in October 2001,
he said "God is in the laws of nature". This is an equvilent statement,
because the laws of nature describe the behavior of masses.
[back]
[2] : Here an actual example from TV-reports : After
the two aeroplanes hit the world trade center, there was a priest
infront of it praying to God for help. No one could change
his mind to go to an safe place. Then the towers crashed and the priest
was hit. Later he died in the
arms of a helper.
[back]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last changing : December 2013
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------